The invention relates to an apparatus for the production of textile pile fabric, and preferably for the production of two bilaterally symmetrical webs of textile pile fabric, comprising a conveying device, able to be driven in steps, for at least one taut support fabric web, with at least one tufting needle bar extending athwart the direction of web conveyance and which bears a plurality of tufting needles placed with a mutual spacing and is able to be moved transversely in relation to the plane of web conveyance, the tufting needles entraining one respective pile thread and piercing each support fabric web to form a pile thread loop and a loop holding device which is adapted to be reciprocated, is arranged opposite to the tufting needle bar, plunges into the pile thread loops, and preferably places a binding thread therein, in the case of the production of two bilaterally symmetrical textile pile fabrics the conveying device receiving two support fabric webs held taut with a distance apart equal to the sum of the individual pile heights and a cutting device is provided at the delivery end of the apparatus between the two support fabric webs for separating the same.
The German patent publication 1,785,451 B discloses an apparatus of this type for the production of two bilaterally symmetrical webs of velvet fabric, there being two support fabric webs held taut with a distance apart equal to the sum of the individual pile heights and received on the conveying device and a cutting device is provided at the delivery end of the apparatus between the two support fabric webs. In the case of this known apparatus a separate gripper is associated with each of the rows of tufting needles extending at a right angle to the direction of conveying of the web. The tufting needles arranged adjacent to one another in the direction of the breadth of the support fabric web must consequently be spaced so far apart that the grippers associated with them may be accommodated without the danger of colliding with each other. This makes a relatively large spacing of the tufting needles necessary, something which is a limiting factor as regards the density of the distribution of the tufting threads.